Decolonising the University Curriculum in South Africa: A Case Study of the University of the Free State

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Decolonising the University Curriculum

in South Africa

A Case Study of the University of the Free State

Author: Linnea Ammon

Supervisor: Christopher High

Examiner: Susanne Alldén

Date: May 29th, 2019

Subject: Peace and Development

Level: Master

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DEPARTMENT FOR SOCIAL STUDIES Linnaeus University

Master thesis 15 credits Peace and Development Spring term 2019

Abstract

Linnéa Ammon

Decolonising the University Curriculum in South Africa A Case Study of the University of the Free State

Pages: 54

In the aftermath of the 2015-2016 student protests on South African university campuses, many universities are struggling with how to respond to the demands put forward by students to end epistemic violence and decolonise curriculum. The following research is an abductive case study, investigating the process of decolonising curriculum in higher education at the University of the Free State in South Africa through the perspectives of staff and lecturers. The views of staff and lecturers are captured through 12 semi-structured interviews and analysed with the help of a frame-work by Jansen (2017a), based on six conceptions of decolonisation. The findings reveal that the UFS appears to be taking an approach to decolonising the university curriculum that primarily is concerned with adding on to curriculum or placing Africa at the centre. In taking these approaches, the university risks implementing changes that will result in superficial changes, instead of seeing curriculum as a strand influenced by many other equally important issues which indirectly can assist in decolonising it. Moreover, decolonial changes at the UFS are found to be slow and despite some important progress, the question remains if it is deep enough to truly move towards a genuine epistemic openness. Regarding decolonial teaching methods, findings demonstrated incredibly di-verse understandings among the informants, indicating that the UFS has not clearly communicated a way forward. Finally, the interviews revealed that the majority of the informants did not feel confident to teach in a decolonial way. If a decolonial pedagogy is essential for the curriculum to be decolonized, as is argued in earlier literature, then the sample group in this study indicates that most lecturers at the UFS are not well prepared to respond to this.

The study concludes that achieving a decolonised curriculum at the UFS is something which cannot be accomplished at a moment but the findings indicate that there are some progressive forces around the university which may speed up transformation. The study further concludes that the paper has reached some insights on barriers to transformation and the challenges that lay ahead for academics if the university is to truly decolonise the university curriculum.

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I want to thank Jesus Christ, who is the reason why I’m living and was able to write this thesis.

I also want to thank my supervisor Chris High who went out of his way to help me in the first stages of this process. Without your key contacts in South Africa and your readiness to assist in times that were already stressful, this study might not have been possible.

In addition, I would like to thank Professor Melanie Walker who provided me with great advice, useful contacts and reading material during my time in South Africa, enabling my work to pro-gress more smoothly.

Lastly, I want to express my gratitude towards all the respondents who kindly agreed to partic-ipate in this study, despite their busy schedules.

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Acronyms & Abbreviations

ITP Integrated Transformation Plan UFS University of the Free State

List of Appendices

I. Informed Consent Form II. Interview Guide

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1 Introduction

After 1994, a democratic, non-racial, South Africa emerged on a rising tide of expectations. Education was expected to address and respond to the needs of all citizens. Great anticipation was in the air, with hopes that the education system would fundamentally transform by disman-tling apartheid (Badat & Sayed, 2014). Yet more than twenty years later, the country experi-enced a wave of student protests erupting around many of its universities, as a result of their continued struggle to access equal and quality education.

The student protest movement of 2015-2016 on South African university campuses caught many by surprise. Within a comparatively short time period, events such as the defilement of a statue on Cape Town campus and complaints about increased student fees in Johannesburg transformed into an influential protest movement which affected nearly each of the country’s 26 public universities. Not even during the dark times of apartheid, had any university ever experienced student protest on this level in terms of strength, scale and violence (Jansen, 2017a). During a short but intense period, demands were put forward to decolonise former white institutions, and more specifically, to decolonise the curriculum. Although issues around the curriculum were quickly replaced by more pressing demands like free higher education, it left a mark within many institutions who took the original demand seriously (Jansen, 2017b). At most South African universities, epistemologies and knowledge systems have not changed considerably since the end of apartheid, but remain rooted in Eurocentric, colonial, and Western worldviews (Heleta, 2016). In response to this, the protesting students called for a decolonised curriculum in order to end what they regarded to be epistemic violence, by removing “the het-erosexual, patriarchal, neoliberal capitalist values which have become so characteristic of the country’s universities” (Le Grange, 2016, p. 2).However, a challenge that remains in the debate around responding to these demands concerns the fact that the call to decolonize curriculum is incredibly diverse, and seldom founded on similar concepts and ideologies when addressed by different people or groups. For some, a decolonized curriculum is based on a broad understand-ing, attaching it to the decolonization of the entire university – meaning a complete transfor-mation of its nature and identity which is perceived to support a colonial legacy. For others, a decolonized curriculum is understood to mainly concern what is taught and therefore put for-ward demands to Africanise or indigenize the syllabus in order to increase its relevance (Webbstock, 2017).

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Another challenge concerns the issue of implementation. Although many scholars agree on the symbolic significance of the call to decolonise curriculum, student activists and academics have yet to answer the question: How will all of this happen? Jansen (2017b) argues that it will not. Partly because, changing the curriculum requires a political commitment at the centre of the university in order to drive deep change. This is essential, even if only addressing issues at the level of content; meaning, “changes in the representation of curriculum knowledge towards an Africa-centred knowledge system” (Jansen, 2017b, p. 12). Moreover, it is unlikely that academ-ics even know what it would mean to decolonise curriculum in their disciplines (Jansen, 2017b). In line with this, research done by Luckett & Shay (2017) suggests that many academics are uncertain about how they should respond to the decolonial challenge in terms of their own classroom practices. This brings into question what role academics, and lecturers in particular, have in the process to decolonise curriculum. Especially since many of them still see European knowledge as the most superior knowledge (Heleta, 2018). According to Webbstock (2017), Jansen (2017a) and Heleta (2018), lecturers are an essential part of the process to decolonise curriculum, as they argue that how you teach something is as much a part of transforming cur-riculum as what you teach. Even more, the symbolic value of the curcur-riculum has little meaning if it is undermined by uncommitted and incompetent teaching (Jansen, 2017a). This has led to questions regarding the ability of lecturers to decolonise their pedagogy and their attitude to-wards the decolonial transformations that is happening across the universities in South Africa (Heleta, 2018).

Research Problem

The importance of acknowledging the role of pedagogy in the process of decolonising curricu-lum has received recognition in South African research up to date, but has mainly revolved around theories on how to transform pedagogy in order to support the objective of decolonising higher education. What research in this field has yet to cover sufficiently, is the actual views and perspectives of staff or lecturers at the universities who are going through these transfor-mations. Therefore, this research aims to contribute to this research gap by interviewing staff and lecturers in order to better understand the progress and barriers to transformation within the academic sphere.

The universities that have seen the slowest progress in terms of embracing decolonial scholar-ship and practices are South Africa’s Afrikaans universities, due to their close alignment with

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the apartheid regime. These universities have seen a clear resistance to decolonise the curricu-lum from the side of academics working at these institutions (Williams, 2018). One of the uni-versities that belong within this category is The University of the Free State (UFS) which has had little attention in terms of research on decolonising curriculum. This provides an important opportunity to research the topic, as it has a history of ‘white, conservative classification’ (Al-exander, Moreeng & Van Wyk, 2010, p. 1041). It also has a large number of staff who have been working there for many years, with qualifications from white, Afrikaans-dominated insti-tutions (Ibid). Moreover, the UFS has a history of racial incidents on the student campus and strong racial divisions in the UFS student body (Mugume, Loader & Luescher, 2016). The uni-versity’s heritage therefore presents a number of challenges in respect of decolonisation which are interesting to investigate.

Purpose & Research Questions

In light of the research problem, the following research aims to investigate the process of de-colonising curriculum at the University of the Free State in South Africa through the perspec-tives of staff1 and lecturers. The research aims to first discern what concept of decolonisation the university is moving towards across the faculties and what progress can be seen so far. Following this it seeks to investigate what the understandings of a decolonial pedagogy are among lecturers and staff, and how prepared they feel to adopt such a pedagogy.

In order to achieve the objective of the research, the following questions are asked:  What does it mean to decolonise curriculum according to staff and lecturers at the

University of the Free Sate?

 Have staff/lecturers noticed or done any changes regarding the issue of decolonising curriculum within their field since the protests, and if so, what kind of changes?  What does it mean to teach in a decolonial way from the perspectives of staff of

lec-turers?

 Do lecturers feel like they or their colleagues have enough knowledge to confidently teach students in a decolonial way?

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Relevance

The call for a decolonised and reformed curriculum in South Africa has given new life to aca-demic discourses on the meanings of decolonisation, diversification, Africanisation and trans-formation of modern knowledge. At the very heart of this call and the other related discourses is a demand to fundamentally rethink how knowledge is produced and taught, which is central to the university. Moreover, it is part of a greater demand to decommission the complex struc-tures which shape the identity, knowledge and power of universities. Zondi (2018) argues that this has implications not only for modern knowledge but for the nation state and the entire world system.

The influential power of student movements similar to the South African one can be seen in other parts of the world including the UK, where campaigns to decolonise knowledge eventu-ally reached Oxford University (Zondi, 2018). Another example can be found in Chile, where student uprisings forced a nationwide discussion on the fundamental fault lines within the Chil-ean education system. Their cry to ‘end profit making in education, nobody owns our dreams’ resulted in significant educational reform and reconsideration of the linkages between the edu-cation system and social and economic inequality in a neoliberal context (Williams, 2015). Likewise, the student struggles that arose in Brazil between 1962 and the 1990s gradually turned into struggles to transform the state and economy, which ultimately contributed to the country’s democratic transitions during the 1990s (Filho & Collins, 1998). The efficacy of these student movements caused the academic debates in the region to turn, giving impetus to ideas of a so called decolonial turn, which has been expressed in terms of ‘shifting the geography of reason’, ‘epistemic disobedience’, ‘second decolonisation’ etc. (Mignolo, 2009; Maldonado- Torres, 2011).

Considering these examples and the impact they had, it is reasonable to assume that the stu-dents’ call to decolonise higher education in South Africa, has the potential to have a similar impact on broad social struggles. Furthering research on this issue is therefore relevant and necessary, as it plays a vital part in moving the discourse forward by posing new questions and seeking new answers. Also, if a decolonized curriculum is to be realized, it is important to research the circumstances of the people and the environment in which it needs to happen. This research will be an important contribution to the research fields of decolonisation, higher education and social justice in general, raising critical issues on the relationship between power,

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learning and knowledge. In this way, it broadly belongs to the area of peace and development, as it addresses the process of societal transformation in post-colonial societies.

Structure

The following chapters of the paper are organized by first presenting a brief background of the situation at the university as chapter 2. Then a literature review follows as chapter 3, which sets the scene for the reader on the topic and establishes the research gap. Chapter 4 continues by explaining the methodology of the research along with its motivations, which is later followed by the analytical framework in chapter 5. Next, the paper presents the findings in chapter 6, answering the research questions posed in the introduction. Thereafter, an in depth analysis will follow in chapter 7 which reconnects with the analytical framework to explain the findings. The paper closes with some final concluding remarks and recommendations for potential directions of future research.

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2 Background

UFS and South Africa’s Afrikaans Universities

The space that the UFS and South Africa’s other Afrikaans universities inhabit within the global conversation on colonial knowledge production is quite unique. In 1904 the UFS was founded as the Grey College School in the city of Bloemfontein and adopted Afrikaans as its only me-dium of instruction at the end of the 1940s. In doing this, the university aligned itself to the apartheid government and its racially and ethnically defined Afrikaner constituency. This pol-icy persisted until the early 1990s but ended as apartheid collapsed. The university then adopted a “parallel medium Afrikaans/English language policy” (Williams, 2018, p. 88) and started ac-cepting black undergraduate students. So, throughout the years of apartheid, the main focus of the UFS was to train the loyal Afrikaner elite. By doing this, the university resembled three of South Africa’s other Afrikaans medium universities which were: Stellenbosch University, the University of Pretoria, and Potchefstroom University (now called North-West University). What these universities had in common was that they remained isolated throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s from questions regarding colonial knowledge (Williams, 2018).

From 1994 and onwards, university managements, faculties and departments have made con-siderable efforts to re-align many of the country’s universities to meet the needs of what is now a post-apartheid democracy. This re-alignment has been particularly difficult for the Afrikaans universities, as many are still “linked to the inbred quality of their apartheid era knowledge production and the social dynamics which reproduce this legacy” (Williams, 2018, p. 91). To-day, student demographics have changed considerably to reflect the country as whole, but the fact remains that a large percentage of academics at these universities have gotten their degree at an Afrikaans university or at the very same university where they currently work. What this means, is that academics at Afrikaans universities often haven’t had any exposure to pioneering curriculum transformation or publishing in high-status international journals, since this requires that you immerse yourself deeply into global academic currents which some disciplines didn’t take part of for decades at these universities. Therefore, the issue of decolonising curriculum is somewhat sensitive at Afrikaans universities because staff might feel threatened by ‘outside knowledge’. This may be because “it and those who wield it undermine the expertise and au-thority of those trained under the previous regime” (Williams, 2018, p. 91). With this in mind, academics at these universities have many reasons to defend the status quo (Ibid).

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Integrated Transformation Plan

In order to understand the status quo on curriculum at the university, it is necessary to review a recently published document by the UFS which is mentioned a couple of times by the inform-ants. One of the ways in which the UFS has responded to the demands to decolonize curricu-lum, which all the informants in the study were aware of, is to develop an Integrated Transfor-mation Plan (ITP) published in 2017, aimed at identifying areas of transforTransfor-mation that the uni-versity needed to focus more on in order to achieve increased social justice (Uniuni-versity of the Free State, 2017).

In a list of four other focus areas, the ITP establishes the commitment to radically accelerate transformation by instigating ”[…] a curriculum review which will interrogate the marginalisa-tion of particular identities and philosophies of knowledge, incorporating scholarship from Af-rica and the global South” (University of the Free State, 2017, p. 2). The plan is very compre-hensive and ambitious in its future vision, addressing issues like teaching and learning, where the aim is to transform and decolonise the teaching and learning function by offering a decolo-nised curricula reflecting different ways of knowing and which draws on locally relevant re-search.

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3 Literature Review

Decolonising Knowledge

Before reviewing research of decolonising curriculum, it is first relevant to look at some influ-ential literature that explains why decolonising knowledge is important and necessary. Accord-ing to Mignolo (2007) decolonisation and decoloniality is about “workAccord-ing toward a vision of human life that is not dependent upon or structured by the forced imposition of one ideal of society over those that differ, which is what coloniality does and hence, where decolonisation of the mind should begin” (Mignolo, 2007, p. 459). Ndlovu‐Gatsheni (2013) asserts that what decoloniality essentially addresses is the coloniality of knowledge, the coloniality of power and the coloniality of being. These areas of coloniality mutually reinforce each other and collec-tively create the experience of coloniality. While colonialism relates to “a political and eco-nomic relation in which the sovereignty of a nation or a people rests on the power of another nation” (Maldonado- Torres, 2007, p. 243), the concept of coloniality needs to be distinguished in that it outlasts colonialism. In other words, it perpetuates patterns of power and stays alive in books, in common sense, in criteria for academic performance and much more (Maldonado- Torres, 2007).

One aspect that has made the modern/colonial world system particularly successful is its ability to make its subjects, located on the oppressed side, think epistemically like the people in dom-inant positions (Grosfoguel, 2007, p. 213). This ties in with the coloniality of knowledge which is argued to be represented by the domination of Western and Eurocentric philosophies. These have been considered universal and objective, and have been presented as the only knowledge that can achieve a universal consciousness – unlike non- Western knowledge which is consid-ered particularistic, and therefore can’t achieve universality (Grosfoguel, 2007). Thus, decolo-niality tries to shift the location of reason away from the West toward previously colonised epistemic sites (Ndlovu- Gatsheni, 2013) to increase the legitimacy of the so called “subaltern epistemic perspectives” (Grosfoguel, 2007, p. 213). In line with this, Mignolo (2007) asserts that epistemic decolonisation “is necessary to make possible and move toward a truly intercul-tural communication; to an exchange of experiences and significations as the foundation of another rationality” (Mignolo, 2007, p. 499).

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In close relation to these ideas, Connell’s (2007) work on sociology investigates the location of knowledge production by using the term ‘Southern Theory’, giving specific attention to sociol-ogy and how it tends to universalize ideas from ‘the North’. Although considered universal, the theories are essentially Eurocentric and fail to include knowledge and voices from people that are non-dominant. ‘Southern Theory’ is an attempt by Connell (2007) to recognize that a diver-sity of knowledges have been denied voice in social theory and that these have valuable contri-butions to make. Connell (2007) seeks to explain how “colonised and peripheral societies pro-duce social thought about the modern world which has as much intellectual power as metropol-itan social thought, and more political relevance” (p. 7). This is knowledge that ‘the North’ should try to learn from and not just about (Connell, 2007). A continuation of this concept is developed by De Sousa Santos (2014) who talk about epistemologies of the south, consisting of: “sets of inquiries into the construction and validation of knowledge born in struggle, of ways of knowing developed by social groups as part of their resistance against the systematic injus-tices and oppressions caused by capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy” (p. 10). De Sousa San-tos (2014) suggests a pluri-university of knowledges, constantly in dialog. Knowledge must be

neither valorized nor rejected but have an epistemic openness (De Sousa Santos, 2014).

While these authors provide a thorough understanding of concepts like decoloniality, Eurocen-tric philosophies etc. the primary inspiration for the 2015 student protests have been found among authors from the African continent like Fanon (1961/2005) and Biko (1978). Fanon (1961/2005) was among the first to theorise and describe the dehumanizing effects that coloni-sation has on the individual and the nation. In South Africa, these ideas were picked up and popularised by Biko (1978) as Black Consciousness, and the 2015 student movement drew heavily on these ideas (Lucket & Shay, 2017).

Curriculum Change in South Africa

The issue of decolonising social and natural sciences has been part of southern discourses for several decades (Ake, 1979; Wa Thiong’o, 1986; Chabal, 2012), and Africa has a long history of actions of rebuttal to colonial education and trying to achieve curriculum transformation in particular (Motsa, 2017). In South Africa, a series of curriculum reforms have been imple-mented since the 1990s and the policy goals formed during those years were breathtaking in their ambitions. However, as Lange (2017) notes, nothing truly changed the curriculum in terms of substance – that is, content, pedagogy and assessment (Lange, 2017).

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The past three decades saw efforts to not only transform curriculum but also to create an ‘Afri-can renaissance’, initiated by the South Afri‘Afri-can vice president in 1996 (Connell, 2007). What an ‘African renaissance’ means in the context of education, is founded on perceptions that the general character of most educational theory and practice in Africa is overwhelmingly Euro-pean in its origins (Higgs, 2016). This has given energy to the ongoing debate in South Africa on the topic of decolonising education. Although there have been critical voices prior to the student protests that have raised issues on epistemology and curriculum, they have not gained much traction at universities and most often remained marginal concerns (Badat, 2016; Wil-liams, 2018).

As the debate intensified after the events of 2015, academic contributions continue to be made that demand the dismantling of ‘epistemic violence’ and Eurocentrism in South African higher education, as can be seen in for example Heleta (2016), Fumunyam (2017a, 2017b), Le Grange (2016), Webbstock (2017) and Walker (2018). However, according to Horsthemke (2004) de-mands to Africanise educational institutions, curricula, syllabi or criteria for excellence are not unproblematic. It may lead to a false sense of ‘belonging’ and create further derogation and marginalization. Instead, Horstemke (2004) suggests the framework of basic human rights as a more promising alternative to respond to the pertinent demands (Horstemke, 2004). Another critique is given by Jansen (2017a), who argues that while the demand for the decolonisation of curriculum can be seen as a useful wake-up call to speed up the process of transforming the universities, “it is fundamentally misguided” (Jansen, 2017a, p. 171). In his view, the concep-tion that South Africa is a postcolonial state is inaccurate in the context of a constituconcep-tional de-mocracy which provides all citizens with a common national identity and shared rights. Adding to this, when used as an instrument of black nationalism, these demands are both offensive and dangerous in a nation which still struggles with inequalities around race, gender and class (Jan-sen, 2017a).

Williams (2018) acknowledges that considerable scholarship exists which illuminates how co-lonial power impacted the knowledge that academic disciplines generated about Africa, which stretches at least two decades back. “Despite the influence of this and related critiques globally, with their focus on power-knowledge relationships, such work has not substantially permeated South Africa’s Afrikaans universities” (Williams, 2018, p. 82). The reasons behind this slow

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transformation are addressed in Heleta (2018) and Department of Higher Education and Train-ing (2015) where institutional culture and language practices can be seen as examples of barriers to change.

What Would a Decolonized Curriculm Be?

In an article on Southern Theory and world universities Connell (2017) asks the relevant ques-tion; “what would be the curriculum in a higher education system dedicated to supporting, ra-ther than preventing, Soura-thern projects of knowledge?” (Connell, 2017, p. 10).

Practical examples of what this might entail include the work by Le Grange (2016) who gives different suggestions to possible strategies of decolonizing curriculum. In one such example, Le Grange (2016) argues for a curriculum founded on the philosophy of Ubuntu, moving away from Descartes cogito, ‘I think therefore I am’ to ‘I am because we are’. The research done by Kronenberg (2015) on Cuban education finds three focal points in the process of transforming the curriculum: literacy, teacher education and access to all services and facilities of good edu-cation. This Cuban model, especially its literacy campaign has been adopted in South Africa’s basic education domain to counteract levels of illiteracy. Another suggestion is outlined by Pett (2015) who presents seven points that are vital to decolonise curricula. Some of these aspects include ‘re-teaching’ teachers and making literature by women and people of colour in literary studies degrees mandatory. Motsa (2017) acknowledges that opinions abound on curriculum transformation but argues himself that curricular justice can’t be achieved “by immediately closing down departments of English and banning Shakespeare. Merely ‘Africanising’ some aspects of the mainstream cannot restore it either. Teaching the African syllabus parallel to and in comparison with the colonial is one way to grow the local epistemologies” (p. 34).

Of course, inspiration can also be drawn from other universities, such as the approach used at the Intercultural University of the Indigenous Nations and Peoples, Amawtay Wasi, in Ecuador (De Carvalho and Florez-Florez, 2014).Here, the curriculum is comprised in three cycles: cycle in the formation of ancestral sciences; cycle of Western sciences and cycle of interculturality. Another example can be found on the North Atlantic coast in Nicaragua where the community and grassroots university called Universidad de las Regiones Autónomas de la Costa Caribe Nicaragüense, is “successfully using higher education to empower indigenous and Creole stu-dents and intellectuals against a backdrop of long histories of racism, discrimination, poverty

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and marginalization” (Cupples & Glynn, 2014, p. 57). In other postcolonial settler nations like Canada and New Zealand there are universities that started acknowledging their need for ap-proaches that are more inclusive toward indigenous epistemologies. However, just like many other universities, such transformations continue to be challenging (Cupples & Glynn, 2014).

What is clear from these examples is that there is much more involved in decolonising a metropole-dominated curriculum than just inserting new content. For instance, the content of curriculum is highly influenced by concepts of research and methodology, as proven in the work of Māori intellectual, Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012) where she presents a strong critique of the entire Western concept of research and its cultural evolution. Smith (2012) describes how such research had devastating effects on indigenous peoples, leading her to articulate a new Indigenous Research Agenda. This research agenda disrupts the old rules of research by en-couraging practices that are more sympathetic, ethical, respectful and useful. Its purpose is ul-timately about building capacity among researchers in order to work towards healing, reconcil-iation and development (Smith, 2012). An echo of Smith’s (2012) critique is made by the Bot-swanan professor Chilisa (2012), who develops a "postcolonial indigenous research paradigm” (Chilisa, 2012, p. 289). This research paradigm is about decolonizing research as knowledge production by emphasizing indigenous knowledge systems and showing how social science researchers may engage with these, in order to integrate these methods into the “global knowledge economy” (p. 289).

In addition to this, an argument is being made that changing how you teach something is as much a part of transforming curriculum as what you teach (Webbstock, 2017). This aspect of decolonising curriculum is addressed by Jansen (2017a) who explains that the curriculum in itself is dead until it is brought to life in the teaching process. Moreover, one must not forget that teachers interpret the curriculum based on their own preferences, experiences, backgrounds etc. The symbolic value of the curriculum has no meaning if it is undermined by uncommitted and incompetent teaching. This inevitably raises the question: “who is going to teach this de-colonised curriculum?” (Jansen, 2017a, p. 169).

Similarly, Heleta (2018) asks “[…] what about academics’ attitude to the readings and to the new ways of thinking?” (Heleta, 2018, p. 58). Many South African academics still see the Eu-ropean knowledge as the most superior knowledge (Heleta, 2018). Are those academics willing to make a change? What is their perspective on the debate on decolonising curriculum? More-over, are they prepared to unlearn and relearn in order to transform themselves as academics?

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These questions have yet to be answered sufficiently through field research at universities in South Africa. This invites for more research on the academic sphere and on the topic of decol-onising pedagogy to better understand barriers to transformation, particularly among the Afri-kaans universities, as these have been identified to have had the slowest progress in terms of embracing decolonial scholarship and practices.

Lastly, Winberg & Winberg (2017) have clarified that a great amount of the research on decol-onising education and curriculum has been conducted in the arts, humanities and social sciences fields. Although the authors acknowledge a growing interest in looking at decolonisation of curricula within science, technology, engineering and mathematics it indicates the importance of including informants in the research from these departments to give these more voice (Win-berg & Win(Win-berg, 2017).

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4 Methodology

Case Study

This research was implemented with an abductive approach as a qualitative case study, focusing on the University of the Free State. Morgan & Smircich (1980) asserts that it is the nature of a social phenomenon that determines which research method is appropriate. The purpose of this study is to investigate the process of decolonising curriculum at one particular university.This means first: that the research aims to understand and analyze processes of social change; sec-ondly, the focus is on one specific research object. This subsequently infers the research to apply a qualitative approach which can be best examined by choosing the research design of a case study. This research design is defined by Bryman (2012, p. 66) as “an intensive examina-tion of the setting … [that] is concerned with the complex and particular nature of the case in question”. The choice of doing a case study was made as the subject of the research is closely interlinked with social relations and processes which are quite complex. In such a context, Denscombe (2009) acknowledges that a case study is suitable, as it allows one to investigate in depth to untangle the complexities of any given situation. Moreover, it enables you to address the issue holistically and thus potentially discover how the many different factors influence each other (Denscombe, 2009). In relation to this study, the case in question, or the unit of analysis, is the University of the Free State. This university was chosen as an ‘exemplifying case’ (Bryman, 2012, p. 70), belonging primarily to a broader category of former Afrikaans universities, which in the literature review are described to be an interesting category for more research. Secondly, I also argue that it belongs to a narrower category of four Afrikaans medium universities, among which it shares much resemblance. This resemblance is founded on the purpose for which they were built, the time in which they were built and the function that they had (details on this can be found in chapter 2).

One of the arguments against focusing on a single scenario, group of people or event is the problem of being able to draw generalizations, also known as external validity (Bryman, 2012). This argument is often refuted by stressing that the purpose of the research design is not to generalize to other cases but to examine the area of interest in an in-depth manner. Furthermore, case study researchers are aware that it’s not possible to identify typical cases that are repre-sentative of a certain class or group of objects. Instead, Bryman (2012) argues that the central issue of concern is the quality of theoretical reasoning by the researcher, also known as

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‘theo-retical generalization’ (Bryman, 2012, p. 71). This brings related criteria like reliability, repli-cability and validity to the forefront, which Bryman (2012) critiques scholars of qualitative research for not considering enough. Scholars like Merriam (1998) and Stake (1995) claim that such factors can be tackled by triangulating information, as their view of qualitative methodol-ogy approaches to reliability and validity is different. However, writers like Yin (2002) supports the consideration of these criteria and suggests different ways to apply it.

For this research, the question of validity is very important when it comes to the data gathered from the interviews. When the interview concerns actual questions, it is possible to control the validity by checking if the informants’ answers can be generally confirmed by other people or sources. Such controls are more complicated to do when the questions concern the informants’ opinions, feelings or experiences, which is largely the type of questions that is asked in this research. Therefore, there is no easy way of verifying what someone has expressed regarding their own thoughts (Denscombe, 2009). The ways that the validity of the data of this research was controlled was to try to compare the data with other sources in the form of written docu-ments and through observations made at the university. What also solidifies the validity of the data is the themes found in the results, which indicate that the opinion is shared by a wider group of people. The researcher can therefore have more confidence in the data than if it only originated from one statement. Moreover, considerations regarding the validity were made by asking myself if it was reasonable to assume that the informant was in such a position that he/she could answer the questions in a well-informed way.

Regarding the criteria of replication in research with qualitative approaches, this is difficult considering its foundational logic.Nevertheless, if the researcher is transparent about his or her procedures and clarifies them in detail, the possibility of replication increases (Bryman, 2012). The criteria of reliability can be influenced by variables such as the epistemological point of departure of the researcher, the researcher’s skill set or even the very nature of the study itself. All of these variables are obviously relative. Techniques to ensure the reliability of the data is for example to triangulate or explaining the researcher’s position in relation to the study (Mer-riam, 1998).

Furthermore, this research takes an abductive approach in line with the definition of Danermark, Ekström, Jacobsen, & Karlsson (2002). This approach entails interpreting phenomenon in the light of an existing frame of interpretation. The frame of interpretation thereby constitutes one of many possible frames, just as the interpretation of the researched phenomenon is one out of

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many potential interpretations. Therefore, abductive reasoning can serve “to observe, describe, interpret and explain something within the frame of a new context” (Danermark et al. 2002, p. 91)

Analytical Framework

The conceptual framework chosen for this study has yet to be applied to a context where the aim is to decolonise curriculum. However, it represents one out of many contributions on what decolonisation of curriculum may mean, and is therefore not comprehensive enough to fully describe all the meanings of the debate. Acknowledging this, it serves as a foundation to under-stand the results but is also added on to, as the themes from the results unfold.

Sampling

In line with previous research (Winberg & Winberg, 2017), the choice was made to include informants at the university from as many different faculties as possible. During the available timeframe, it was possible to find respondents who were willing to participate from all faculties of the university, except Natural and Agriculture Sciences and Open and Distance learning. This meant that the research ended up with informants from seven different faculties with one informant from each, except for the humanities faculty which had a total of four informants that partook in the research. The focus on the humanities was primarily a result of sampling strategy and availability of the informants but also perhaps, due to the fact that the humanities are more familiar with the topic and were therefore more eager to participate. An effort was made to reach out to more faculties in order to balance out the representation of informants but there was not any replies. One of the 12 respondents works for the Centre for Teaching and Learning and another one works for the Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning, neither of which belong to any faculty.

In order to find staff and lecturers, key people were initially contacted and thereafter, the method of snowball sampling was applied (Bryman, 2012, p. 424). The risk that came with this sam-pling method was that staff at the university would refer me to people who they thought would be most capable to answer my questions. This entailed a risk of ending up with a sample group that consisted of the most progressive lecturers and staff at the university, as academics that are passionate about this issue were assumed to give me better answers than academics who don’t care at all. In order to mitigate this, I also contacted people randomly by email without any recommendation, at various faculties. Four informants partook in the study as a result of those

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emails and could not give as elaborate answers as those that were found through snowball sam-pling. However, they brought more diversity to the sample group and likely made it more rep-resentative of how reality looks at the university. With this said, there is a chance that the results would have looked differently if the sample group was chosen in a different manner.

Semi-structured Interviews

In order to answer the research questions, semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 lecturers and staff at the university. Given the political sensitivity of the research subject (see chapter 2), semi-structured interviews were considered the most appropriate method, as they allowed the respondents to develop their own ideas in a setting where I could observe their emotional responses to the interview. Through this interview method I could also endeavor to minimize any negative feelings or distress which may have arisen among the respondents as a consequence of taking part in the research (Bryman, 2012).

Prior to the interview, an informed consent form (see annex 1) was given to the interviewee to be signed, containing information such as the purpose of the research, procedures of confiden-tiality and contact information of the researcher (Bryman, 2012, p. 141). It was assumed that the respondent would decline to take part of the interview if the subject was perceived to be too sensitive, which would minimise the risk of emotional distress. When respondents agreed to take part in the research, the risks of emotional distress were mitigated by offering to conduct the interview in a relatively sheltered environment at a private office which was available to me. This enabled the interview to take place with minimal distractions and interruptions. It was important to ensure that the respondent would feel as comfortable and safe as possible, since it would not only protect the respondent but would also increase the chances of more elaborate and honest answers. In the circumstances where the respondent declined the offer to do the interview at my office, I made sure that they were comfortable enough with the place that they suggested, which was mostly at their own office or in a private lounge belonging to their de-partment.

Two of the interviews had to be conducted through Skype, as my time on campus ended before I had a response from the last two respondents. The same procedure of providing a consent form to be signed in advance etc. was done for those interviews as well. After the interview, the collected data was transcribed and put through the process of thematic coding. Theoretical ideas were derived from the data rather than being formed before collecting the data (Bryman, 2012). To ensure the security of all interviewees, they have been given complete anonymity.

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It is important to note that the views and perspectives of the respondents who partook in the research from each faculty are not representative of their own entire faculty.Rather, their views should be seen as their own individual opinions which might indicate in what direction the discourse is moving at the university.

Ethical Considerations

The subject of this research is an ongoing and highly debated issue in South Africa, as has been clarified in the literature review. This required careful preparation in order to ensure that the research would be conducted in a responsible manner. Hence, preparations for ethical consid-erations in this research began by taking guidance from the national Swedish guidelines pro-vided in the publication Good Research Practice (Vetenskapsrådet, 2017). They are summa-rized in eight general points which state the following:

1) You shall tell the truth about your research.

2) You shall consciously review and report the basic premises of your studies. 3) You shall openly account for your methods and results.

4) You shall openly account for your commercial interests and other associations. 5) You shall not make unauthorised use of the research results of others.

6) You shall keep your research organized, for example through documentation and filing. 7) You shall strive to conduct your research without doing harm to people, animals or the envi-ronment.

8) You shall be fair in your judgement of others’ research. (Vetenskapsrådet, 2017, p. 10).

In order to conduct the research at the University of the Free State, an ethical clearance was required from the General/Human Research Ethics Committee at the university. This was at-tained after a few weeks into my visit in South Africa, allowing me to proceed with the data collection as planned. The application process to receive the clearance was very thorough and demanded me to articulate the preparations and considerations I had made to mitigate any po-tential risks.

In my view, there was a slight risk of emotional distress during the interviews, arising from the intersection of political sensitivity around the topic and participants' own history. This was mit-igated in the research design in five ways: 1) A focus on the duty of care of me as a researcher towards participants in relation to their feelings about the topic. 2) Prior informed consent to

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participate in the study, using both a verbal and text-based (see annex 1) process to enable potential participants to consider for themselves in advance whether they would like their point of view to be included. 3) A right to withdraw consent to participate in the study emphasized in the consent form and consent procedure. 4) Potential participants were approached about whether they would like to participate and if they agreed the interview took place in private so as to protect the sensitivities of the respondents. 5) As a Northern researcher studying decolo-nization in a Southern university, I treated the respondents as experts in a better position to make informed judgements than me, in order to set up a better relationship between me and the teachers at the UFS.

In addition to this, I always introduced myself as a Swedish researcher, and demonstrated an open, respectful and curious mind-set. My hope was that this would assert my objectivity and create more understanding from the side of the interviewee, in case I should mistakenly use the incorrect terminology or sound insensitive.

Lastly, all the necessary actions have been taken to ensure the anonymity and confidentiality of the interviewees. Each of the interviewees’ perspectives were respected and taken into consid-eration when presenting the results and no data was changed or manipulated. Throughout the process of collecting the data, objectivity was at the core.

Criticism of Sources

All interviews in the research were conducted in English, which is a second language to the researcher and the majority of the respondents. This may have had an effect on the answers. However, since both the researcher and the respondents use the language on a master level or higher, it is reasonable to assume that this didn’t compromise the quality of the answers signif-icantly.

Limitations and Delimitations

The scope of this research was primarily limited to its timeframe which was set to six weeks. As a result, the number of interviews that could be conducted on campus depended on the availability of the staff to meet with me at the university during this period. In addition, consid-erable time was taken up in the early stages of the fieldwork with getting institutional ethics clearance, limiting the time available to carry out interviews. Even so, 12 interviews were car-ried out, and establish a starting point for making an analysis of the different positions at the

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university. Given the sampling method, the conclusions cannot be said to be formally repre-sentative, and further research could establish a wider range of positions.

One limitation of the research is the problem of generalisation as it aims to be a case study. However, the pros and cons around this issue has been addressed under the previous heading called Case Study. Finally, being a researcher from the North, I acknowledge my positionality as a researcher trained and situated in a country with ‘Eurocentric ideas’. Based on this, I acknowledge this to be a limitation of my own knowledge, which required me to open up to encounter different forms of knowledge with an attitude of openness and curiosity.

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5 Conceptual Framework

Conceptions of Decolonisation

As established in the introduction, the literature on decolonizing curriculum is somewhat com-plex and heavily contested (Webbstock, 2017). However, according to Jansen (2017a) there exists at least six different conceptions of ‘decolonisation’ in terms of knowledge as embedded in university curriculum. These conceptions will be used as a conceptual framework in order to understand and analyze the results.

When introducing these conceptions, Jansen (2017a) emphasizes the importance of not reading them along lines of sharp distinction, as there are some proponents whose argument stretches across several categories. To clarify, “the distinctions lie in the emphases of meaning in various works by recent curriculum scholars” (Jansen, 2017a, p. 158).

Soft Views

Decolonisation as additive-inclusive knowledge

Described by Jansen (2017a) as a ‘soft version’, this concept of decolonization recognizes that current canons of knowledge are of value but requests that new knowledge should be recognized and added to established curricula. A professor at the University of Cape Town speaks of it as a content-driven additive approach that expands the already existing curriculum. The critique of this approach is that adding content is necessary but insufficient to fully decolonize the cur-riculum. Although it would be just to add in what has been left out, such as adding a new course to a degree or a new book to the syllabus, there is a danger of ghettoizing the new content from the mainstream disciplines. As an example, this approach was adopted by subordinate groups in the US during the 1970s, where courses in African and gender studies were simply added on to the curriculum, as a result of the civil rights and campus protests against exclusion. In time, departments were formed which specialized in these knowledges and were often given their own centres in special facilities with a group of staff. However, they never disturbed the dom-inant canons of the institutions.

Decolonisation as the decentring of European knowledge

Within this view, the critique is put forward that educational institutions organize the content of curriculum around the ideals, values and knowledges of Europe, which is the location of colonial and postcolonial authority. As an example, under apartheid it was likely that South

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African students would be taught more about Europeans fighting against fascism than about their own wars against colonialism. Another example concerns the war which was fought ex-clusively on African soil, yet the conflict was described as ‘the Anglo-Boer War’ – were the battle was between warring whites, instead of naming it ‘the South African War’ where black people fought on both sides. In simple terms, this is a conception of decolonization that is more generous and its supporters argue that Europe must be replaced with Africa at the centre of the curriculum. The idea is not to delete Europe from the curriculum but that the values, achieve-ments and ideals of Europe must come second to a new knowledge system which places Africa at the centre. This concept of recentring could be described as a ‘soft version’ of Africanisation, restoring the location of African knowledge “at the heart of how we come to know ourselves, our history, our society, our achievements, our ambitions and our future” (Jansen, 2017a, p. 159).

Decolonisation as critical engagement with settled knowledge

This concept advocates the empowerment of students to engage with knowledge by critical questioning such as: “Where did this knowledge come from? In whose interest does this knowledge persist? What does it include and leave out?” (Jansen, 2017a, p. 161). Here, the though process goes that you can’t eliminate things about the past that you don’t like. Instead, you can invite critical involvement with such curricula in a way that ultimately transform what they essentially mean. Basically, one looks at the same set of problems with new eyes by mak-ing use of new theories, methods and perspectives.

Decolonisation as encounters with entangled knowledges

As a relatively new way of thinking, this idea on decolonizing knowledge doesn’t separate knowledge into neat binaries like ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘the metropole’ and ‘the South’ etc. Instead it views our knowledges, in likeness to our human existences, as intertwined. The argument goes that even scientific discovery owes its existence to ‘interwoven’ knowledge from both the colonizer and the colonized. Regardless how we try, we will never escape the fact that our lives are entangled and in so being, this invariably reflects in how and what we know. According to Jansen (2017a) this is especially valid in today’s South Africa, where old enemies find them-selves sharing social spaces like universities, while engaging with the same knowledge inside the curriculum.

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Hard Views

Decolonisation as the repatriation of occupied knowledge (and society)

In this ‘hard version’ of decolonization, curriculum is assigned great power to influence both settled knowledge and settler society. This repatriation approach has many supporters from people who are involved in struggles to help indigenous peoples regain control over their orig-inal land. In particular, these supporters are enraged by those who propose the additive-inclu-sive model for a decolonized curriculum. They claim that “this kind of inclusion is a form of enclosure, dangerous in how it domesticates decolonization” (Jansen, 2017a, p. 163). In com-parison with other approaches mentioned, this approach has much more ambitious ends, includ-ing land repatriation to native tribes and nations. Moreover, they assert that it is impossible to compare demands to reconcile and decolonise, since reconciliation tries to rescue a settler fu-ture. Clearly, decolonization does not mean pampering settlers or granting them innocence by creating an accommodating curriculum. Instead, its purpose is to create awareness about the need to end modern forms of slavery, give back stolen land and overthrow the concealed impe-rialism which keeps indigenous people in subjection.

Decolonisation as the Africanisation of knowledge

Unlike the ‘decentring position’, advocating for an exchange of Europe for Africa, this ‘hard version’ of Africanisation wants to displace the Western knowledge, achievements and ideals as the standard that human progress is measured against. The pan-Africanist sees the call to Africanise the curriculum as a nationalist imperative which rejects the imitation of Europe and asserts African identity. In this context, it would mean that students read literature by African authors, learn about scientific achievements by Africans, explore art by African artists and so forth. In other words, a decolonized curriculum should be about Africa alone and not Africa in relation to Europe or the West.

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6 Case Study

Perceptions of a Decolonized Curriculum

Lack of consensus

In regard to the first research question, four informants expressed that there is a lack of consen-sus on what it actually means to decolonise curriculum. In their view, it appears as if there is no consolidated approach at the university regarding this issue. However, one informant added, that if there are people at the university working specifically with this topic, then the respondent would like to know what their definition of decolonising curriculum is. Especially since her own perception of what it is, means much more than just inserting indigenous or local content. Decoloniality is a process

Four informants expressed that decolonising curriculum isn’t an event but a process. Therefore, “people may have to accept that the answer is not a one dimensional definite thing that can be delivered to you. So we should really start looking at curriculum as an object for discussion, not an object that is going to teach me one way” (Informant 1). One informant said that decolo-niality is not just a once of methodology but more like a movement that must go on for a longer time until it achieves its goals. Another informant said that simply teaching people the names of some famous African mathematicians is a superficial way of looking at it. Instead, it is a long term process and not just a “once of and then we are done” (Informant 9).

Inclusion of different voices

One clear theme that appeared from the interviews concerns the inclusion of different voices in curriculum. For one informant, this meant including researchers more broadly and especially from more developing country contexts but more specifically from Africa. This would enable students to see different voices and learn to understand that the epistemological origins of knowledge isn’t necessarily just western (Informant 9). Similarly, another respondent stressed the importance of including African scholars if you are in Africa. More importantly, universities must not focus on already established cultures that are out there but include those that are mar-ginalised (Informant 6).

Continuing on the same theme, one Informant added, “I think we could work a lot harder at getting better South African and African examples in our classrooms. For me it’s about includ-ing people that would have been excluded in the past. Not just disabled people but people of all

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races and backgrounds” (Informant 4). For one respondent, a decolonised curriculum could mean seeing an African or a female name as part of the list of books to read, without it shocking anybody. It would mean a fairly balanced list of thinkers and writers that are not just European. Or, perhaps seeing a black lecturer standing in front of you in the sciences, not just at the Centre for Africa Studies, without anyone asking where he/she got their degree. Essentially it concerns an “awareness to which different kinds of voices are required in order to shift narratives about ourselves, about our possibilities in the future, about our prospects and about our rights and visibilities” (Informant 5). Among the interviewees, one respondent saw the need for more di-versity in the curriculum but was openly sceptic to the possibility of “catering for all the cultures in South Africa” since they are simply too many (Informant 8). Another Informant also touched on this theme when explaining that a decolonised curriculum would mean some form of balance and moving away from what we thought (Informant 1). However, this statement is so unspecific that it could arguably fit within the subsequent theme as well.

Pluriversality

One of the informants described a decolonised curriculum in terms of achieving epistemic free-dom. For the respondent, this meant being transversal and pluriversal – meaning the ability to generate diversity. What the informant emphasized was the need to shift the centre of episte-mology, the Eurocentric centre, which takes for granted how knowledge should be presented, what is true and what counts as knowledge. For the informant, epistemic freedom is about de-centring eurocentrism without replacing it with another fixedness.

“I think that’s the other danger. By flipping the coin, to eradicate what someone is thinking and jump to another side is doing the same thing, it’s just another form of reproduction. But having said that, I want to be clear that I think there has to be enough space and adequate space to hear the voice of black pain. To hear the effects of subjugation and oppression. I think that one has to give room for that but I don’t think it’s the end or an end. I think it’s another form of reproduction” (Informant 10).

Another informant expressed how the notion of pluriversality is a very important part of an African conception of decolonization and decoloniality. Nevertheless, to talk only about plu-riversality is not enough (Informant 6).

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Africa at the centre

Two informants said that a decolonised curriculum is a curriculum that puts Africa in the centre. This means that when you start to look at the world, you start from Africa and then you look elsewhere (Informant 9; Informant 6). According to one of the informants, Afrocentricity means that our analysis and intellectual activity has to take an African perspective without being pa-rochial, essentialist or hold dogmas about what is African and what is authentic as the truth. At the same time, we have to commit to the universal drive for truth, for scientific validity and reliability etc.

Focusing on the indigenous perspective

Two informants understood decolonising the curriculum as a focus on the indigenous perspec-tive but gave it different meanings. One of the informants was openly against the process of decolonising the curriculum, and understood the process as completely taking out the western perspective and going back to African indigenous knowledge, instead of seeing it from a global view (Respondent 11). The other informant saw the indigenous perspective as indigenous peo-ple in South Africa, Africa or the world as a whole. In her view, the critical question to con-stantly ask is, who is and isn’t represented in the narrative. Many times, it is the indigenous perspective that is lacking, which therefore requires universities to centre the indigenous per-spective with greater force (Informant 5).

The remaining views on decolonising curriculum are so specific and non-reoccurring that one cannot view them as a theme, but rather, individual factors that together represent important pieces of a greater puzzle. In order to get a better overview, they are presented as components of decolonising curriculum in table 1.

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Additional components to decolonising curriculum Table 1.

Inclusive learning spaces

Relevance African languages Change of power Understanding

precolonial history Students need to feel

a sense of belonging. In other words the way you do teaching and learning, the way you facilitate it, the environment you create, either an online environment or a face to face en-vironment needs to be welcoming and inclusive (Informant 9).

Students want to see what the relevance is to contemporary challenges in South Africa. When work-ing with academics around developing curriculum, “we need to help them to make sure that whatever theories they teach students, we show them the application and the relevance of con-temporary issues in South Africa” (In-formant 9).

It is truly limiting that the UFS, and many other South African universities as well, only see the African languages as the local languages. Today there are no strong programmes in other African lan-guages and this is something that really should change (In-formant 12).

One factor that needs to change regarding curricula, is the change of power in who determines the curricula. Since the power resides with the people who de-sign curricula, there is a need to have bet-ter representation in the curricula board, talking on behalf on those that are mar-ginalised (Informant 6).

Academics must think about what colonialism did to knowledge production and what it has done

to how

knowledge is disseminated. To understand the past and see how it is actually en-tangled in the present, one must look at pre-colonial history to come to grips with colonial legacies, content and pedagogy (Informant 12). Experiential learning “Transfor-mation” is not enough Recruitment of staff Politics of knowledge produc-tion *Continuation from above column Students need to

step out of the class-room and get experi-ential learning through an impact study during one se-mester. This is im-perative to the learn-ing process as the experience forces them to think and take responsibility for their learning process. “You kind of force that diver-sity and integration on them, with peo-ple they normally wouldn’t meet, be-cause we don’t do this in classrooms today” (Informant 1).

A decolonised cur-riculum will never be realized if the university continues to manipulate the word ‘transfor-mation’ and doesn’t address other ele-ments that are es-sential for the cur-riculum to be decol-onised. “You have transformation profiteers or trans-formation mer-chant, and I say the same thing when it comes to decoloni-sation. People who use these concepts twist them in a way to speak about a change that is

no-A decolonised cur-riculum is connected to how staff mem-bers are being re-cruited, since they are the ones sharing and preparing the knowledge. Factors such as how the per-son is recruited, what the person has come to do, whether the person is a junior scholar, or a senior scholar, will all in-form how this person prepares his or hers course outlines and what the person is going to deliver (In-formant 2).

We cannot forget the issue of how we share and produce knowledge. The nexus between re-search and what is being taught should not be forgotten. The point made by the in-formant was that the whole issue of decol-onisation percolates through the entire system. Whether we are talking about the knowledge produc-tion, the way institu-tions are organized or how knowledge is shared etc. Failing to understand that cur-riculum is just a strand that is

influ-“A lot of my fo-cus in my teach-ing is on identity issues, notions of race and tity, ethnic iden-tity, nationality, gender and how the things that people claim to be their identity, are in fact a part of a colonial past and it’s sort of disentangling this” (Informant 12).

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They are simply moving the logic from here to there” (Informant 2).

things will only re-sult in superficial changes (Informant 2).

Signs of Change at the University

No change

Six informants expressed that they had seen little or no change in their faculty/department (In-formant 1, 2, 3, 4, 10 & 11). One in(In-formant answered that the field in which she teaches has a long tradition with decolonisation specifically and that brilliant work exists from both the Af-rican continent and South Africa. However, she knows for a fact that her department doesn’t engage with any of it, which is difficult for her to understand. She added that she wishes that the field she teaches in would go through a transformation. Not only because it’s of massive value but because 80 % of the students are now black. To her, this means that teaching the same old content to a completely new demographic in the classroom requires a lot of skill from you as a teacher that not everyone possesses (Informant 1).

Informant 2 said that there has been a general progress at the university regarding decolonisa-tion but not especially within his field. He acknowledged that there are some honest scholars who are trying to do whatever they can to bring some change but he also said, “you can have a beautiful idea, but it is also clouded with hypocrisy. There are people who say they are trans-forming that are not transtrans-forming” (Informant 2). The informant explained that the unwilling-ness to transform has a lot to do with fear of the unknown. In addition, Informant 2 made a point that no change can happen quickly in the higher education institution if there is no proper work done in basic education where the whole process must begin from (Informant 2).

Informant 3 explained that there has been no discernable change in the curriculum within his faculty, or any other considerable changes during the last years. He added that his faculty has no formally structured engagement with the ITP that he is aware of. As a result, his faculty has not started to think systematically or in a disciplined way about the implications of the ITP for their programs. The informant felt certain about this because he is one of the foremost people in the faculty thinking about such issues. On a positive note, the informant said that if you look at the South African law teaching today, there are some important changes. For example, the judges are not all white so the court decisions you read are truer to the diversity of the South

Decolonising the University Curriculum in South Africa: A Case Study of the University of the Free State